The coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on organisations, businesses, individuals and their families. As one of the few European Agencies delivering services 24/7, and with centres spread across Europe, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) has put various measures into place to ensure continuity of services and the security of EGNSS infrastructure, while at the same time prioritising the health and safety of staff and contractors.

The GSA is responsible for ensuring business continuity and keeping Galileo and EGNOS secure and operational, and this can only be done by protecting the health and safety of its staff and partners, which remains the Agency’s top priority.

The GSA is helped in this by the fact that, from its Prague headquarters, it is used to working remotely with the different Galileo and EGNOS sites across Europe. At the same time, special measures are being taken to protect the various operators working around the clock, seven days a week. The Agency is currently responding to the different scenarios in each country in order to manage security and operations, while putting measures in place to protect its people.

“These are very challenging times for all of us, requiring us to be flexible and resourceful. I am proud of how the GSA teams across our different sites have quickly adapted to the new situation,” said GSA Acting Executive Director Pascal Claudel. “The spirit of solidarity and cooperation I experience every day has shown me that the GSA’s team is its core asset and a strong foundation upon which to build the future of the Agency,” he said. “The entire European GNSS family has pulled together, and the GSA can rely on the support and commitment of all our partners, including Member States, industry, and SMEs.”

GSA staff and contractors are learning new ways to work online to continue providing location, navigation and timing services to the user community. This applies equally at GSA headquarters and at the various sites. The Agency is also working with the European Commission, Member States and industry to find new solutions to emerging issues. “With the support of the Member States and industry, the GSA has demonstrated its leadership in this time of crisis, ensuring the continuity of the Galileo and EGNOS services. This is evidence that Europe is stronger together,” said GSA Administrative Board Chair Jean Yves Le Gall.

The GSA’s commitment to helping European industry benefit from EGNOS and Galileo remains as strong as ever, and the Agency is continuing its work on activities that are already underway.

Horizon 2020

The 21 ongoing projects remain on track (with the option of contractual adjustments to help partners impacted by the crisis). The new call with 44 project proposals is in the evaluation phase, for the first time taking place remotely via video conference.

Fundamental Elements

There are 19 projects ongoing and on track (also with contractual flexibility to help partners impacted by the crisis). For later in 2020, 13 more projects are already published or are under evaluation.

Industrial contracts

During the COVID-19 crisis, the GSA is ensuring full support to the EU space industry by agreeing contractual adjustments to be implemented as needed throughout the entire supply chain, from Primes to SMEs.

GNSS and the response to COVID-19

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus earlier this year, many apps have been developed that use GNSS precise location to monitor the global spread of the virus and to map outbreaks of the COVID-19 disease. GNSS-apps are also proving their usefulness by helping people to implement social distancing in queues and other public spaces.

To support the EU response to COVID-19, the EC and GSA are also working on the “Galileo Green Lane” app, to facilitate the movement of goods and freight within the EU. The objective of the “Galileo Green Lane” is to relieve borders from the pressure of handling goods and to manage more efficiently the transit of critical goods. At the same time, this Galileo app will provide Member States with a tool to report to the EU on the Green Lanes initiative. A first version of the app is expected in mid-April.

The GSA is compiling a repository of these apps as a knowledge bank of solutions and toolbox that are being used to fight the pandemic and to help authorities, emergency response services, citizens and app developers to understand current needs and available resources.

If you have developed an app that is already working and being used to map the spread of the coronavirus, to monitor incidences of the disease, or to alert users about possible risky contacts, tell us about it and we will include it in our database. We are looking for apps that are already working and available. Submit some information on your solutions in writing to market@gsa.europa.eu and we will feature them on the GNSS4Crisis page.

By entering the http://egnos-user-support.essp-sas.eu website (hereinafter the “Website”) EVERY USER (HEREINAFTER THE ”User”) agrees to all of the terms and conditions (hereinafter the “T&C”) as set out below.

All enclosed representation or statement shall not be construed as the official position of any international organization.

The Website is a work of authorship (‘oeuvre’) as per article L.111.1 of French ‘Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle’ and contains notably software programs, photos, pictures, graphics, interfaces, written content, videos that are fully owned by ESSP and for which ESSP has been authorized to use them. They shall not be used, copied, distributed or modified, on whatever form, without the prior and written authorization of ESSP.

ESSP and its logo is a registered trademark. It shall not be used, copied, distributed or modified, on whatever form, without the prior written authorization of ESSP. The User is only granted with a right of digital display of such trademarks on the Website.

Inserting any URL or hyperlink towards all or part of the Website requires prior written authorization of ESSP and shall come with the commitment of an absence of any adverse effect in any manner whatsoever on ESSP, and ESSP partners, corporate image including, but not limited to, offense, xenophobic, racist, hateful, defamatory, revisionist, pornographic, pedophile, lewd conduct, political, proselyte content or prod for terrorism, crime, suicide and their apology or proposal to trade.

3. Personal data & privacy

ESSP may collect technical data about the type of Internet browser and computer operating system used by the User. This information does not identify the User as an individual and is used only for tracking of Website use. ESSP might also place a ‘cookie’ on the User’s hard drive that will help identifying the User when the User will access the Website. For more information about Cookies please see hereunder paragraph 4.

Because protecting Website user privacy is important to ESSP, when Website requires Users’ information for enabling communication or when they are subject to analysis to better understand Website Users, ESSP follows a strict policy of not selling or trading any personal or sensitive information about the Users.

Users’ information requested are treated in compliance with French law n°78-17 “informatique et libertés” as amended by Law N°2004-801 implementing European Parliament and Council Directive n°95/46/EC
Pursuant to this law, the User is granted with a right of access, rectification and deletion of his data related by contacting:

When the User requests information on ESSP, answer may be provided via a call center. For this purpose, the data may be transferred outside of France or Spain but will remain within the European Union.

4. Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work more efficiently as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.

This Website makes use of cookies to monitor visitor sessions. No personal information is stored in the cookie that is issued by the Website. The value stored in the cookie is an anonymous identifier, which is not linked to any other personal information the User may give during its visit. If the User does not want to accept these cookies, the User can disable them in its Internet browser settings. However, in such case, the User is aware that ESSP does not guarantee the good functionality of the Website and the services provided on it.

5. Website private access

Some parts of the Website are only accessible after registration and require entering a login and password to access. The terms of use of such private parts of the Website are accessible upon registration and acceptance of the T&C.

The User is already aware that the User is the sole responsible for the safe conservation of these access details and ESSP disclaim any liability related to their loss, use or misuse and that ESSP will be entitled to suspend or delete the User’s account if the User does not respect the terms of use of the relevant service or any law or regulation in force.

6. Disclaimer

All the data and information (hereinafter the “Data”) provided within the Website are for informational purpose only.
ESSP disclaim all warranties of any kind (whether express or implied) to any party and/or for any use of the Data including, but not limited to, their accuracy, integrity, reliability and fitness for a particular purpose or user requirements.
ESSP SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY lost profits, lost revenues, loss of goodwill, loss of anticipated savings, loss of customers, loss of data or, interference with the business or for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages arising out of or in connection with this website.

EGNOS is a complex technical system and the users have certain obligations to exercise due care in using the EGNOS services. Before usING ANY EGNOS SERVICE, all users should study the CORRESPONDING EGNOS Service Definition Document (available on the ESSP SAS website http://www.essp-sas.eu/) in order to understand if and how they can use the service, as well as to familiarize themselves with the performance level and other aspects of the service they can rely on, SUCH AS THE SPECIFIC ASSOCIATED DISCLAIMER AND TERMS OF USE.

This Website may contain links towards other websites, such as those of our partners. ESSP is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those other websites.

The User is aware of inherent technical risks and difficulties of Internet and IT systems which are not related to ESSP and that may lead to:
· Impossibility to access the Website, access slow-down, software or hardware incompatibilities;
· Loss, misappropriation, contamination of data in particular due to virus or Trojans.

ESSP may not be held liable for such risks and difficulties and their consequences for the User.

IN ANY CASE, PURSUANT TO THE NATURE OF THE WEBSITE AND THE SERVICES PROVIDED, ESSP’S MAXIMUM TOTAL LIABILITY SHALL BE LIMITED TO A GLOBAL FIXED AMOUNT OF EUR1000 (in words: One THOUSAND Euros).

7. Suspension or interruption of the Website

ESSP is entitled to suspend, interrupt or modify all or part, of the Website, temporally or not, without prior notification and without any liability.

In case of definitive interruption, Website users shall erase any copy of the Website or Website content they have.

8. Modification and evolution of the T&C

The present T&C shall be subject to modification or evolution at any moment and without any notice.

Any change of the T&C shall be fully in force and applicable to all Users as soon as the new T&C will be accessible on the Website. Thus the Users are advised to regularly access the T&C in order to be aware of the last updates.

9. Governing law

This T&C shall be construed and governed under the French law with exclusive jurisdiction of Paris Courts, even in case of multiple defendants, summary proceedings (interim ruling, evidence, provisional measures or other) or introduction of third parties.